USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania: From the Discovery of the Delaware to the Present Time (Volume 1 and 2) > Part 31
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The first settlers of the county brought with them the costumes prevailing in England at that day, each according to his station, but their hard life in the wilderness obliged them to change their dress to suit the circumstances, and they adopted coarse and strong clothing. There was but little alteration in the first fifty years. Buckskin and coarse tow-cloth were in universal use for trowsers and sometimes for jackets, hemp and tow-cloth for shirts, wool hats, and strong shoes, with brass nails in them, made up the common dress, and, in winter, linsey jackets and leathern aprons and trowsers were added. Among the wealthy, and in the towns, the style was more pretentious. Cloth was the material in use by them, while velvet, silk and satin with embroideries, were reserved for great occasions. The men wore the square-cut coat and long flap waistcoat ; wigs were universal, and those who wore their own hair were con- sidered mere nobodies. There were various styles of beaver hats, much trimmed with gold lace: with the wide brims looped up on both sides, and knee- breeches, long stockings and shoes with broad buckles. The skirts were .wad- ded, almost as stiff as a coverlet to keep them smooth, and the cuffs, open below, reach up to the elbow. Ladies wore hoops. The silk gown was much plaited in the back, the sleeves double the size of the arm, and only coming down half way to the elbow. The rest of the arm was covered with a fine Holland sleeve, nicely plaited, with locket buttons and long-armed gloves. Aprons were fashionable and much worn, large or small, according to the taste of the wearer.
About 1750 a fashionably-dressed lady carried an elegant snuff-box with a looking-glass in it, wore a watch, bracelets, chains and necklace, and black
4 Kalm tells us the peach was introduced by Europeans. while Mr. Bartram says it is an original American fruit.
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patches were worn upon the face as beauty-marks. The hair, an object of great care, was elaborately done up over a framework of wire, with mountains of curls, flowers, feathers, etc. Cloth bonnets and caps were in vogue. A bride wore a long black veil without the bonnet. Fashionable people wore articles, the very names of which, with the material they were made or, have long been forgotten.5 Breeches, made of plush, were worn in the country until after the .Revolution, and buckskin breeches in Philadelphia as late as 1760. Horse jockeys wore gold binding on their hats. Country people began to adopt Philadelphia fashions about 1750, when women indulged in silk and linen handkerchiefs, silk for gowns and fustians and cotton-velvet for coats. They who could afford it, wore silver shoe-buckles. Men carried muffs to keep their hands and wrists warm, and, among the coats in fashion about the middle of the last century, we find the names of shamokums, hussars, surtouts, and wraprascals. The bonnets were monstrous, high, silk affairs, called wagon bonnets, from their resemblance to a Jersey wagon. Prior to the Revolution people dressed according to their position, and classes could be distinguished by their costume. Hired women, and the wives and daughters of tradesmen, wore a short-gown and petticoat of domestic fabric, and other parts of their dress to correspond. This period called peddlers into use, who traveled the country to sell the more expensive goods now required. Between 1750 and 1760, society had undergone a revolution almost without the knowledge of those who were affected by it. The traveling costume of a minister among Friends, an hundred years ago, consisted of a coat with broad skirts reaching below the knees, and low, standing collar, waistcoat without collar, coming down on the hips, with broad pockets and pocket-flaps, breeches with an open- ing a few inches above and below the knee, closed with a row of buttons, and a silver buckle at the bottom, shoes with silver buckles, and woolen yarn stock- ings and boots to the knee in the winter. On the head was worn a black beaver with broad brim turned to a point in front and rolled behind. Now place him on horseback, with a pair of leathern saddle-bags containing his wardrobe slung at the back of his saddle, oiled-silk cover for his low-crowned beaver, oil-cloth cape over his shoulders reaching nearly to the saddle, and stout over- alls to protect his breeches and stockings, and one has a good idea of a travel- ing Friend as he went about the country preaching.
Among the early settlers of this county, which is the case with the inhabit- ants of all newly-settled countries, great social intercourse was kept up. The old and young of both sexes, met together in frolics to pull flax, gather grain and hay and to husk corn. When all the grain was cut by the sickle, it was the custom for a large company to assemble in the field and contend for victory. Women sometimes became dexterous in the use of that implement and strove in competition with the men. John Watson tells us, in his History of Buck- ingham and Solebury, that about 1741 twenty acres of wheat were cut in Sole- bury by sickle in a half day. In imitation of the custom in England, weddings were made the occasion of great festivals, a large number of guests invited and a good dinner and supper provided. The festivities were frequently con- tinued the next day, and plays and sports of various kinds were practiced. Some of them were rather rough, but sanctioned by the social customs of the day. For many years, from the settlement of the county, persons about to be
5 Here are the names of some of these almost forgotten materials: "Paduasoys, ducapes, colored persian, pins and nuns, nonsopretties, scarlet, lettered and rose garters. alopeens, camlets, camblettes, durants, florettas, silk saggathies, and hairbinesi"
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married were obliged to put a notice of it upon a meeting-house door for thirty days before it was to be consummated, in the presence of three witnesses, and the marriage must be performed by a justice of the same county. This ap- plied to marriages out of meeting. The bride rode to meeting on a pillion be- hind her father or a near friend; but after the ceremony the pillion was trans- ferred to the husband's horse, behind his saddle, and with him she rode home. The coffins of the dead were carried to the grave on the shoulders of four men, swung on poles so they could travel more easily along narrow paths. The birth of children was likewise made the occasion of festival, and the guests were served with wine and cordials. The tender infant was loaded down with clothing, and, when sick, spirits and water stewed with divers spices were ad- ministered to it. The manners of the period were rough, sometimes lewd, and fist-fights were of common occurrence-but the inhabitants grew up a healthy, vigorous race, with few diseases and those but little. understood. At that day tailors and shoemakers traveled around among their customers and worked at their houses. The farmers laid in a stock of leather for shoes, and stuffs for clothing, which these wandering tradesmen came twice a year to make up, boarding with the families they worked for. There was scarce a house in town or country that did not contain a spinning-wheel. It was the boast of the women of the Revolution, that without foreign aid they kept the whole popula- tion clothed, while their husbands, fathers and sons fought the battles of the country. No young lady's marriage outfit was complete without a big wheel and foot-wheel, and it was the pride of all, that they knew how to use them. Now these wheels are unknown unless found in a museum of curiosities, or stowed away in some old garret as useless relics of the past.
Land was first fenced on the Delaware, under municipal regulations, in 1656, to protect the crops. Goats were to be guarded by a herder. under a penalty, or the owner to pay the damage done : hogs were to be yoked or killed by the soldiers. Under the Swedish government no deeds were given for lands unless granted by the Queen, but the Dutch issued many deeds subsequent to 1656. When the country was first settled land was plenty and cheap, and one could get a farm almost for the asking. Shortly after John Chapman's death, 1694, his widow traded one hundred acres in Wrightstown to William Smith for an old gray mare. There is a tradition that William Penn offered his cuachman, whose name is said to have been Moon, the half square in which Lætitia court is situated. Philadelphia, in lieu of a year's wages, f15, but he refused this, and accepted a tract of land in Bucks county. As the country was settled up, and the inhabitants increased, land gradually appreciated in value. By 1700 improved land was generally sold by the acre, the nominal price being the value of twenty bushels of wheat, and continued with little variation for several years. When wheat was two shillings six-pence per bushel land was sold at fifty shillings per acre, equivalent to about $12.50, with- out allowing for the increased value of money. The price, however, depended on the price of wheat, and it fluctuated in a sliding scale. When wheat brought 33 cents land was $6.67, wheat 40 cents land $7, wheat 46 cents land was $9.33, wheat 56 cents land was $13.31, wheat $I land was $20, and with wheat at $1.12 land sold for $26.62 an acre. As a rule rye sold for a shilling less per bushel, and Indian corn and buckwheat two shillings. At this era of low prices beef sold for two and a half cents per pound, and pork for the same. The books of Richard Mitchel, who kept store in Wrightstown, from 1724 to 1735, give these prices, and wheat for the period ranged from three shillings to four shillings-forty to fifty-three cents. The land being strong and new
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produced from fifteen to thirty bushels of wheat to the acre. The crops failed in the summer of 1705, when wheat was under four shillings the bushel, fifty- three cents, and goods of all kinds very dear. This year money was so scarce that Penn asked the passage of an act making bonds assignable and current as money, and he wanted a "land bank" chartered. This was a season of trial to the settlers. Logan writes to Penn on the 17th of May, that it had been the hardest winter, with the deepest snows, known to the oldest settlers, and that the Delaware was still closed. There was great sickness, especially among children, in the winter, 1705. . Previous to December 27, 1762, the government price of unseated land was fixed at £15. IOS, per hundred acres, about $40. From that time down to the commonwealth, in 1784, the price fluctuated from $24 to $41.33 per hundred acres. There was no fixed price in the manors or the Proprietary surveys, these being private property. For several years after the county was settled, warrants were issued on credit, and notes and bonds given for the purchase money. The land sold to immigrants by William Penn was charged with a quit-rent of one English shilling to every hundred acres, due him as lord of the soil, made payable at his manor-house, Pennsbury, the Ist day of March, yearly, where James Steele held the office of receiver for many years. James Logan, who went to Bristol to receive the rents, 1705, complained that he went three times into one township to settle with the pur- chasers, but could not get more than one-half to come in, as they had no money and were ashamed to appear.
Wages have fluctuated from the settlement of the county, for many years being governed by the price of wheat, and afterward entirely independent of it. From 1699 to 1701 William Penn paid laboring men from 2s. 6d. to 4s. a day. In 1775 the price of labor was 8s. 6d. At, and after, the Revolution, when wheat was 5s. a bushel, the price of labor in the harvest field was 2s. 6d. for men and Is. 3d. for boys. The wages of hired men were from £16 tof20 a year, and from £8 to fio for women. In 1719 wheat flour was 9s. 6d. per cwt .; in 1721, 8s. 6d. to gs .; 1748, 20s .; 1757, 12s. 6d. In 1774 flour was 18s. 6d. and wheat 7s. 9d. In 1812 carpenters received but 80 cents a day with board. Fifty years after the arrival of Penn, beef sold at 4 cents per pound." At the Durham furnace, 1780, sixty Continental dollars were equivalent to one hard dollar, and potatoes were sold at 2s. 6d. bushel, hard money, or £5 Continental. Down to about 1830 female help in the house was paid 621/2 cents a week.
Pennsylvania currency, 7s. 6d., $1; fr, $2.66 2-3; IS., 131/2 cents, and Id., 1 1-9 6 cents.
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CHAPTER XVIII.
THE COURTS; COUNTY SEATS; DIVISION OF COUNTY; BUILDING OF ALMS HOUSE.
Justice under Swedes and Dutch .- Earliest courts at Upland .- First lawsuit in Bucks county .- Penn's courts .- First court in the county .- Our quarter sessions .- Der- rick Jonson .- First execution .- A verdict by lot .- Attorneys .- Pleadings .- County seal .- Our early judge .- Bird Wilson and successors .- Members of the bar .- The Chapmans, father and son .- Fox, Ross, et al .- Griffiths .- Early court houses .- County seat at Bristol .- Removed to Newtown .- Public buildings .- County-seat changed to Doylestown .- The opposition .- Buildings erected .- Attempts to divide county .- Erection of alms house .- Previous care of the poor .- New court house, 1877 .- Bi- centennial celebration, 1882.
Under the Swedes and Dutch, the administration of justice on the Dela- ware was very simple. The population was sparse, offenses few, and some of them punished in a summary way. When the possession of the river fell into the hands of the English, 1664, Governor Lovelace attempted to establish their system of court, but found so many difficulties, the machinery of civil administration was not fairly in operation until. 1670. Three judicial districts were organized, that of Upland extending up the Delaware to the falls and embracing Bucks county to that point. Down to the arrival of William Penn the few inhabitants of the county were obliged to go down to Upland, now Chester, to transact their legal business. Upland is first mentioned as a settlement, 1648, but was probably settled by the Swedes as early as 1643, and named after a province in Middle Sweden. The earliest court held there was in 1672. Sir Edmund Andros remodeled the judicial system of Governor Lovelace, and to him we are really indebted for the introduction of English jurisprudence on the Delaware. His courts, held at Upland, New Castle and Whorekill, had the power of courts of sessions, and could decide all matters under £20 without appeal, and under £5 without a jury. An appeal could be had to the court of assize where the matter in dispute was £20, and, in criminal matters, where the punishment extended to loss of life or limb or banishment. The courts met once a month, or oftener if there were occasion. Constables were chosen annually in each community to preserve the peace, and there was a justice in each vicinity to hear and determine small cases. Previous to Feb- ruary, 1677, all wills had to be proved, and letters of administration granted at New York. The Upland court now petitioned Governor Andros to clothe it, or the commander on the Delaware, with this power, on the ground that the
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estates were too small to bear so great expense. The court was allowed to grant letters where the estate was under £30, but where it was of more value it had to go to New York as formerly.
The first action to recover a debt, brought by an inhabitant of Bucks county, was by James Sanderling, of Bensalem, who sued John Edmunds, of Maryland, November 12, 1678, for the value of twelve hundred pounds of tobacco, and the scales of justice inclined to the plaintiff's side. In 1679 Dun- can Williamson and Edmund Draufton, also of Bensalem, were parties to a suit. Draufton, who was something of a schoolmaster, and probably the first of that honorable calling in the county, agreed to teach Williamson's children to read the Bible for two hundred guilders, and was allowed a year to complete the task, if that length of time be required. When the work was done Williamson, refusing to pay the bill, was sued by Draufton before the Upland court and re- covered his wages. The regulations relating to the ear-marks of cattle were adopted by the court under Andros's administration, and we find that at the ses- sion held at "Kingssesse," June 14th, 1681, Claes Jensen brought in the ear- marks of his cattle, and desired they might be recorded which was done.
The "Frame of government," adopted by Penn before leaving England, empowered the provincial government and council to erect courts, from time to time as they might be required. This was changed in 1683 so as to give the Governor the right to appoint to office, but, at the Proprietary's death, it was changed back as it stood at first. The courts were modeled after those of England : A supreme court, with law and equity jurisdiction, courts of common pleas, with the same double authority, and courts of quarter sessions holden by the justices of the peace or any of them. Courts of oyer and terminer, for the trial of capital cases, were frequently held by commissioners specially ap- pointed. The permanent foundation of the colonial judiciary was established by act of 1722, which differed little from the courts as now constituted.1
The first court held in Bucks county, of which we have any record, was at "ye new seated towne" on the Delaware below the falls, not far from where Morrisville stands. The place was called "Crewcorne." and the court the "Court of Crewcorne ( spelled Creekehorne) at the falls." The court was opened prior to April, 1680, but how much earlier we have no means of telling. William Biles was a member of the court. On April 12th the court sent to the Governor of New York, under whose jurisdiction the settlements on the Delaware then were, the names of four persons for magistrates "according to order," but the names are not given. 1683
The first court held in this county was an orphans' court at the house of Gilbert Wheeler, who lived just below the falls, March 4, 1863.2 There were present on the bench, William Penn, James Harrison, John Otter, William Yardley, William Biles and Thomas Fitzwater, with Phineas Pemberton as clerk, which office he held to his death. Pemberton was clerk of all the courts of the county. His commission, dated at Pennsbury the 5th of second-month, 1686. and issued by Thomas Lloyd and directed "To my loveing friend, Phineas Pemberton, near Delaware Falls." The first business transacted was the making disposition of the estate of, John Spencer, a settler lately deceased, and binding
1 In the course of our investigation, an old commission turned up, appointing Mahlon Kirkbride, John Watson, Jr., Langhorne Biles, William Yeardly and Joseph Kirkbride justices of the first court of common pleas, under the date of 1759 "for establishing courts of judicature."
2 The records from that day to this are complete in the office at Doylestown.
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out his children. The next term of the court, March 3, 1684, was held "in the court house of said county." The first court of common pleas was held the 11th of December, 1684, and the first case called was Robert Lucas against Thomas Bowman, "for withholding seven pounds, wages due to the said plaintiff in the third-month last past." The summons was served by Luke Brindley, the deputy sheriff, who was "Ranger" at Pennsbury, and judgment was given in favor of the plaintiff with costs. The fourth case was that of Ann Wilson, who sues Edward and William Smith for "one pound nine shillings unjustly detained from her," which she recovered. The first court of quarter sessions was held eleventh-month 12th, 1684,' with the same justices that held the orphans' court but the business transacted was unimportant. The first punishment inflicted, by virtue of a sentence pronounced the 11th day of the fourth-month, 1685, was on Charles Thomas, who received "twenty lashes upon his bare back well laid on," and, after sentence, was fined five shillings for behaving rudely to the court. The 10th of twelfth-month, 1685, a special term was held by order of the provincial council to try David Davis, under arrest for killing his servant, the first murder trial in the county, but the records do not give the result. The first grand jury was empaneled at the June term, 1685, and consisted of twenty- two men. At the September term Gilbert Wheeler was presented for "turning of the high road where it was laid out, and fencing it up."
At that early day our infant quarter sessions was hard on negroes guilty of larceny. At the December term, 1688, a runaway from Virginia, named George, indicted for stealing two turkeys, worth six shillings, from Thomas Janney, Jr., was found guilty on three indictments and sentenced to pay the value of the goods, to be sold into servitude and whipped with forty lashes on his bare back in presence of the court. He was bought by Stephen Howell and was to serve fourteen years, but if his master should make demand he was to be re- turned to him at the end of ten years. The first coroner's inquest was the 15th of May, 1692, on the body of Elizabeth Chappel, who was drowned by falling off her horse into the Neshaminy.
The first judicial execution in this county, and probably in the State, was in the month of July, 1693, when Derrick Jonson, alias Closson, was hanged for murder. On the 8th of May, 1692, the body of an unknown man was found floating in the Neshaminy, near its mouth, and bore evidence of foul play, on which an inquest was held on the 12th, and returned into court on the 8th of June. It appearing from the evidence, before the coroner, that a considerable quantity of blood was found on the wall of Jonson's house, and on his bed, he was arrested. He and his wife Brighta were examined at the August term. He tried to explain the appearance of the blood, saying that it came from a man's nose three years before, and that he had mentioned it about the time. Although there was strong circumstantial evidence that a murder had been committed, the court discharged Jonson on his own recognizance of fioo, and his wife on security in the same amount, to answer at the next term. A true bill was found against him at April term, 1693, and he was tried and found guilty of murder at the June term, and sentenced to be hanged. His wife and neighbors peti- tioned for his pardon or commutation of sentence, but without avail, and he was executed about the middle of July, by the sheriff, Israel Taylor." A few days after Taylor appeared before the provincial council and asked to be
3 January 12, 1685, new style.
4 It is believed Jonson was hanged at Tyburn, Falls township, which gave the name to the place, after its English namesake.
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relieved from office, and it was done." The convict was a person of considerable property and the council looked after his crops, allowing Robert Cole £7. 15s. for securing them, to be paid from the estate. Jonson had been in the courts before, having been bound over at the June term, 1685, for striking his servant, Jasper Lun. He was a Swede, and had probably been in the country several years." There is a tradition, but a cruel one, that he was confined in the old jail, at the Falls, then in a very dilapidated condition, and it was hoped he might break out and escape, but not doing so, it was hinted the authorities hung him to get rid of him."
A case was tried at September term, 1698, that deserves a passing notice. Francis White sued James Alman to recover the value of a horse, and a verdict was rendered for defendant. On complaint of illegal proceedings in the jury room, the jury was bound over to answer at December term. On examination the jurors confessed that not being able to agree on a verdict they concluded to see how it would go by lot, and ordered John Dark, the constable, to cast a piece of money into his hat, and on that agreed upon a verdict and brought it into court. The jury told the court the casting of the lot had given them great trouble, but they had paid both plaintiff and defendant money enough to satisfy them and all parties concerned. The court fined each juryman £2. Ios., Con- stable Dark being let off with ten shillings.8
The attorneys practicing at the Bucks County Bar at that early day were not always "learned in the law," but neighbors and friends, ignorant of the legal profession. Patrick Robinson was one of the very earliest whose name appears on our dockets. He lived in Philadelphia and was some time clerk to the Provincial Council, but giving offense, was dismissed, when he turned his attention to the law.
In 1698 Mahlon Stacy, who lived across the Delaware where Trenton stands, and Henry Ackerman, appeared for the plaintiffs in a suit of ejectment. The same year William Biles appeared as attorney for Thomas Hudson, and likewise Joseph Chorley, Samuel Beakes and Samuel Carpenter, none of whom were professional lawyers. In 1705 one J. Moore, was attorney for Thomas Revel, executor of Tatham, of Bensalem, in a suit of ejectment against Joseph Growden. Then the pleadings were very simple, the English common law system not being in force in this province, and the declaration contained only a concise statement of the plaintiff's cause of action. At the settlement of the State, when the court gave judgment contrary to law, it was fined by the coun-
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